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How-To Geek

One of the cool features of Excel 2010 is the addition of Sparklines. A Sparkline is basically a little chart displayed in a cell representing your selected data set that allows you to quickly and easily spot trends at a glance.

Inserting Sparklines on your Spreadsheet

You will find the Sparklines group located on theInsert tab.

Select the cell or cells where you wish to display your Sparklines.

Select the type of Sparkline you’d like to add to your spreadsheet. You’ll notice there are three types of Sparklines, Line, Column, and Win/Loss. We’ll select Line for our example.

A Create Sparklines pops up and will prompt you to enter a Data Range you are using to create the Sparklines. You’ll notice that the location range (the range where the Sparklines will appear) is already filled in.

You can type in the data range manually, or click and drag with your mouse across to select the data range. This will auto-fill the data range for you. Click OKwhen you are finished.

You will see your Sparklines appear in the desired cells.

Customizing Sparklines

Select the one of more of the Sparklines to reveal the Design tab. You can display certain value points like high and low points, negative points, and first and last points by selecting the corresponding options from the Show group. You can also mark all value points by selecting Markers.

Select your desired Sparklines and click one of the included styles from the Style group on the Design tab.

Click the down arrow on the lower right corner of the box to display additional pre-defined styles…

Comments (3)

I think I’m going insane. My Ribbon is not displaying the Sparklines Group, nor Slicer. Yes – I’m definitely using 2010.
Can anyone tell me why and how to turn it on? I’ve looked in Options and can’t seem to see the setting. Is it an Add-In?
Frustrating!
Nicole

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